Bollywood movies from a Non-Indian perspective

Main menu

Post navigation

Brad Pitt on location in Chandigarh for Bigelow’s new film

Yes, Brad Pitt is in India, but not exactly for a Bollywood movie.. this one won’t come with song and dance, I am afraid. Directed by Kathryn Bigleow, the director from the movie The Hurt Locker. (I wonder if Bigelow hired an Indian crew. I don’t know if she did but it probably would make her life much easier)

It was supposed to be secret, but I guess it’s not so secret anymore… I read about it yesterday on twitter. Bigelow is shooting a movie about “Mission Geronimo” (code name given to the secret mission to capture or kill Osama Bin Laden in his compound in Pakistan). No official title yet, or maybe Zero Dark Thirty. It was only a matter of time until somebody made a movie of it and I am glad it’s coming from Bigelow. Hurt Locker was an amazing and honest film.

I only hope they got a good security team set up for the shooting of this film. I myself still have mixed feelings about what went down there, the killing part, to be exact. Pakistan wasn’t too happy about the whole operation. Dear Kathryn and Brad, watch your backs. We don’t want anything to happen to you guys.

here is what I found digging:

Kathryn Bigelow to recreate Osama bin Laden town in India

Kathryn Bigelow, the Oscar-winning director of The Hurt Locker, is to recreate the Pakistan Army garrison town Abbottabad in India for her new film on the US Navy Seals who tracked and killed Osama bin Laden.

by Dean Nelson, New Delhi

Kathryn Bigelow Photo: PAUL GROVER

Her eagerly-awaited film, which is understood to be titled Zero Dark Thirty, is due for release in December this year, tells the story of the US Navy Seal team which trailed the notorious al-Qaeda leader before finally killing him, his aides and one of his sons in a night raid on his secret compound in the heart of a Pakistan army establishment town.

Its cast is understood to include Jessica Chastain, star of The Help, British actor Mark Strong, Aymen Hamdouchi and Kyle Chandler.

The raid, which was carried out without the knowledge of the Pakistan army and government, caused widespread anger at the violation of the country’s sovereignty and remains a source of anti-American feeling in the country.

The doctor who used a fake immunisation campaign to help the team pinpoint the bin Laden compound is still in custody.

The producers decided in the current security climate it would be impossible for them to film in Pakistan and looked for alternative locations.

One of the film’s actors, Jessica Chastain, who recently starred in the Tree of Life and The Help, revealed filming had been under way in Jordan and was set to move to India.

“I’ve been working on Bigelow’s movie in Jordan after the Oscars I go to India to shoot more,” she said on a celebrity website earlier this week.

Indian officials confirmed the producers are filming in Punjab state in Chandigarh and Patiala, and possibly close to Jaipur in Rajasthan, where they will recreate Abbottabad where bin Laden, his wives, children and aides hid for more than six years.

While Chandigarh is a 1950s modernist town created by the French designer Le Corbusier, its outskirts have villages which resemble Thanda Choha, the hamlet of dusty lanes and ugly walled mansions where bin Laden hid on an illegally-built upper floor. Patiala is a historic royal town which has fine colonial buildings similar to some found in Abbottabad, the hill town named after the 19th British conqueror of the North West Frontier, Major James Abbott.

The film has already caused controversy in the United States where officials in the Obama administration have been accused of leaking details of the bin Laden raid to the producers.

The row prompted the CIA to release a statement detailing its long-standing role of helping artists and film-makers. “The CIA has been open that as part of our public outreach, the agency has over the years engaged with writers, documentary film-makers, movie and TV producers, and others in the entertainment industry,” a spokeswoman said recently.